Talk:Caligula (I Claudius)
I Claudius version of Caligula is portrayed as a Tragic Villain and not a Complete Monster as although his actions are considered horrific, disturbing and morally wrong, he is deeply mentally disturbed with clear symptoms of neuro-psychological impairment indicated by his very strange and behaviour (Inconsistent with someone who has moral responsibility and chooses to perform evil to achieve personal goals) abnormal actions and outlanish beleifs along with constant bad pains in his head and extreme lack of sleep. Also only displays horrific behaviours following awakening from his coma in which he likely suffered brain damage so cannot be deemed fit enough or completely morally responsible for his actions. He is also shown a some sympathy for his mental sickness by his uncle and the main protagonist Claudius who despite his treatment by him, avenges his death by removing Caligula's assasins. He also has a suitable about of comdeic value to the audience to the extent it can be hard to take his actions seriously such as his dawn dance, collecting Neptunes seashells and making his horse Incitatus consul. There is a bigger psychological picture to consider than the gossip of unreliable biased historians such as Suetonius. OhkEshivar17:12, January 17, 2015‎ TV Tropes considers him as a monster. Robinsonbecky (talk), 11:28, January 17, 2015 (UTC) I'd have to disagree with the notion he is tragic and that being tragic negates the Complete Monster, I won't edit war over it as the category should be beyond reproach just putting my my two cents on it. Neurosis does not make some one redeemable, nor does tragedy. Michael Myers is clinically insane with a tragic childhood, but that in no way affects the outcome, he kills people for the fun of it; Captain Mako was specifically designed by the City of Villains game devs to be a psychotic sociopath. "Sure he rips out peoples teeth, makes a necklace of them, eats people alive and has plans to murder even his own allies but he was an orphan who was abandon by his parents just because he was a mutant" Aw Poor baby, how does that change what he is now? In Caligula's case I'd say that he is neither- Caligula murdered his dad LONG before he thought he was Zeus and is shown having sexual desires for his sisters since he was ten, signs of sociopathy that were in place well before his mental break down. But Complete Monster may not apply because in the book (Not TV special though, it doesn't come up) he refuses to replace the statuettes of Vesta with busts of his sister, considering Roman's patron of purity to be untouchable even by a god. Granted this can be written off as part of his condition, he thinks he is Zeus and Zeus considers Vesta/Hestia sacrosanct, but it still shows that Emperor crazy here still had at-least one standard he was not willing to cross. Mesektet (talk) 12:17, January 20, 2015 (UTC) Please stop deleting and editing this page by adding CM and Pedophile and please stop using TV tropes and other sources to construct a portayal of Caligula. For goodness sake please go and actually watch the 1976 version of I Claudius if you want to debate his personality. The creators of the show have deemed him a tragic villain in so many words. His portrayal is quite different from that of the novel and other sources such as the 1979 movie starring Malcolm Mcdowell. I created this page solely for John Hurts portrayal of him, if you want to give information based on other sources about Caligula go and add it to his page on the real life Villains Wiki and not here. Although Caligula is widely feared and hated by some, it is characters such as Tiberius, Livilla and Messalina that are used to stir audience hatred whilst Caligula is a point of fascination and extravagance rather than pure evil, he has some albiet small good points and is capable of showing mercy and love to some some as him restoring the positive memory of his mother and his wife Caesonia. His bad points are solely down to his heap of mental and neurological disorders that re likely the result of his bad genes rather than environment so he cannot be held morally responsible for his own actions. I will not rest until people stop adding CM because this portayal is not, if you think he is then you have to add CM to Zeus and to a lot of other fictional portrayals of historical and mythological characters as well which I dont think anyone would let happen so stop adding it here and tarnishing the page.OhkEshivar (talk) 00:00, January 24, 2015 (UTC) It kind of depends on how far gone he was. Robinsonbecky (talk) 06:36 January 23, 2015, (UTC) He was insane to the point where he belived he could hear a leaf falling on the other side of the world and had a constant extreme headache and practically no sleep. Imagine being in bed trying to get to sleep and you have a bad fever and your minds in overdrive mode, he would have probably felt like that most of the time as he is believed to have suffered from a multitude of neurological disorders including epilepsy, encephilitus (Inflammation fo the brain) as well as psychological disorders. Nobody would have understood his condition so nobody could restrain his madness which manifested itself with his actions and extreme behaviours.OhkEshivar (talk) 00:45, January 24, 2015 (UTC) Dear Admins, Would their be scope for adding the category "Completely Insane" like on the real life villains wiki that can be added for characters like Caligula who go beyond the regular "Villains with menatal illness"who have completely no control over their actions and perform villanous acts due to a lack of a moral compass and severe clinical insanity as opposed to a CM who performs dastardly evil and has full mental awareness and control of their actions. Caligula on RL Villains wiki has labelled him as such and I Claudius's portrayal of him also fits the description. Im not saying that Caligula was an angel or even a particularly nice guy but he doesnt fit as a Complete Monster. OhkEshivar (talk) 22:20, July 18, 2015 (UTC) I would like to point out that Caligula didn't go insane to adulthood, however he started off murdering people when he was only a child (he helped kill his own father while simply a boy), he likewise conspired, manipulated and murdered his way into power before he went insane. Its true he committed his worst offenses while he was insane, but the guy didn't actually get worse when he was insane, if anything he actually got better, as Claudius was able to manipulate his instability to shift him from homicidal to calm simply by performing things he would like. --General MGD 109 (talk) 18:55, July 19, 2015 (UTC)